Deputy charged with DWI

THIBODAUX -- A Lafourche sheriff’s deputy on military leave pending his deployment to Iraq was charged with DWI and careless operation after he crashed his personal vehicle, authorities said.

Scott Toups, 25, of 154 Cinclaire Drive in Thibodaux, was arrested after he crashed his vehicle on the Canal Boulevard Bridge over Bayou Lafourche about 2 a.m. Sunday, State Police spokesman Rodney Hyatt said.

Toups, who has worked for the Sheriff’s Office for about two years and who also serves as a Marine reservist, had been released for military leave starting Friday, Sheriff Craig Webre said.

Toups served in Iraq from March to September 2003. He was to be deployed again to the war-torn country sometime this month, Webre said.

The deputy has been placed on indefinite suspension from the Sheriff’s Office pending the outcome of the misdemeanor charges and his return from military service, Webre said.

The sheriff was not sure how long Toups was to be stationed overseas.

Webre said Toups was surprised to be sent to Iraq so soon; he expected to be called to military duty until April.

"That was a shock to him," said Webre, who said he suspects the earlier-than-expected deployment had some bearing on the lapse of judgment that led to Toups’ Sunday arrest.

"There’s certainly no rationalization," the sheriff said. But Toups, he said, "had an impeccable work record. This is very much out of character."

The sheriff said his office would consider a number of factors in determining whether Toups or any officer facing similar charges would remain employed by his department. Among them: determining whether the deputy has an drinking problem.

Toups, who reportedly refused a breath test, was determined to be under the influence of alcohol after he was unresponsive to a state trooper who knocked on the window of Toups’ wrecked vehicle, Hyatt said.

The trooper smelled alcohol on the deputy’s breath, he said, and had to shake him to wake him up.

Toups was charged with first-offense driving while intoxicated and careless operation of a vehicle. Toups was taken Sunday morning to the parish jail, where, Hyatt said, he was turned away due to what jail officials said was overcrowding.

Lafourche Parish jail Warden Eddie Rodrigue said the jail’s official capacity is 244 and that overcrowding is a common problem.

"We’ve been fighting this battle for the past few years," Rodrigue said of the crowded conditions.

He said this morning that the jail is over capacity now, which requires housing 32 Lafourche inmates in St. John Parish.

He said it’s not unheard of for the jail to be 30 or 40 prisoners over capacity, with 70 to 80 housed in other parishes.

It costs the parish $4.50 a day to keep an inmate in the Lafourche jail, but other parishes charge $23.39 a day for housing out-of-parish prisoners, which is equal to the rates charged by the state’s Department of Corrections.

Besides the extra cost of housing prisoners outside the parish, there’s the extra cost and security risk of transporting them, he said.

The jail never turns away prisoners accused of felonies, but when the charge is a misdemeanor, the person is often just given a ticket and released.

Toups was released to his father, Hyatt said, and issued a ticket to appear in court.

Efforts to reach Toups this morning were unsuccessful. No one answered the phone at his father’s home and there is no listing for a Scott Toups on Cinclaire Drive at in the phone book.